| LETTERS FROM LONDON |
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| REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL 22 November 2015 |
| Pigs Do Fly PM CallMeDave is determined to fly – in his very own £10million plane. Of course he is. PM CallMeDave is determined to send planes to fly over Syria to obliterate Isis. Of course he does. Let’s begin with CMD’s very own Air Force One. Oh oops. That’s American isn’t it? Clue: sycophantic Dave wants to join the big boys on the playground/in the air. His PM plane has been dubbed ‘Cam Force One’, ‘Dave Force One’ and ‘Cam Fly With Me’. You’re encouraged to create your own. Sobriquet of course. Just days before Osborne’s Dickensian billions of public spending cuts are announced, Dave has offered his £10m refitted RAF Voyager A330 air-to-air refuelling plane to senior royals. Charitable, Dave. None of those crisp crumbs on the seats, Dave. The official position is that the plane will save around £775,000 a year in charter charges, meaning it will take just under 13 years for us, the budget airline travellers, to pay it off…and oh yes, CMD’s private plane will need to be retired at 20 years. So this is clearly good value for money. No spin involved, right Dave? Sorry, but….according to Guido’s airborne sources the plane will actually cost more than £200million. Clearly Dave was never good at maths…or much else really. It’s terribly practical and convenient; only a half hour from Dave’s family home front door. Hope it will be delivered by Christmas…. Dave has plans to give presents to his ministers. Guess. A fleet of new executive jets. Of course he has. Flying Blind CallMeDave wants to regain his prime ministerial power; he wants to win the vote on bombing Syria (having lost it the last time to his ultimate humiliation). And of course he wants to insure the Tories stay in power for ever. Labour and Scotland are the necessary votes. Ironic don’t you think? Several obvious problems, Dave. Bombing has not been very successful in that Isis hide in schools, hospitals, caves – they aren’t standing on a mountain top waving ‘over here’ flags so when planes are sent out, they often return having not dropped a single bomb. Not good is it? Another is that Britain only has a few aircraft deployable. Not good is it? Another? The lack of coordination, strategy, forward planning, opposing loyalties/agendas, operating with cross purposes, competing levels of government and duplicity used by various monarchies/countries. Not good is it? An example of no communication: a few days before the Paris bombings Bavarian police stopped a Montenegro man in a car filled with Kalashnikovs on his way to Paris. The man wasn’t stopped nor was the information shared. On a scale of one to ten how insane is that? 100? 1000? But the scariest reality to consider is that “Isis always responds to any attack on itself by targeting civilians in the country or community it holds responsible” according to award winning reporter/journalist Patrick Cockburn. Oh dear. Do you think CallMeDave knows this? Oh you know he doesn’t. But no worries if you have plans to visit New York anytime soon. The son of infamous mob figure John Gambino, Giovanni Gambino, said during a TV interview that “the rise of global terrorism gives the Mafia a chance to show its good side.” Brings a smile, doesn’t it? Evidently good-hearted La Cosa Nostra is ready to fight Isis in New York. Gambino is sure that the Mafia can do a better job of protecting the city from terror attacks than the New York police. But wait. If you are visiting you could be shot at random, so best to worry then. Now there’s a solution we haven’t considered; world-wide Mafia families unite to eliminate Isis. They certainly have the expertise, connections and the cash. Rant and Raves or I’m Losing the Will to Live Oh dear, oh dear. A simple question: why do the simple-minded have any power in government? No, really. Why? A few of the latest examples of utter stupidity: Tory MP Philip Davies apparently has a reputation for ‘talking out’ Bills he doesn’t like. He spent 50 minutes talking in order to create a filibuster. Phil didn’t like the proposed Bill that would have made it compulsory for schools to teach life-saving skills to children as part of the National Curriculum. What? Do I seriously have to repeat: ‘life-saving skills’? When argued that it was a ‘life and death’ issue that required a second reading, Phil called it a “ludicrous argument” because he had forgotten the first aid that he had received at school. Ironically words fail. Other Bill blocking forced through by Phil you wonder? Scrapping hospital car parking charges for carers, promoting cheaper off-patent drugs for the NHS and – oh yes, there is more – a law that would have required landlords to make sure their homes were fit for human habitation. Who elected this idiot? Shouldn’t someone have taped his mouth shut with gaffers tape, taped his hands and legs together and tossed him out a window, I mean out the door. OK. I meant a window. The Tories simply can’t help themselves can they? Now they are planning to delete women from the politics A-level curriculum. So no teaching women’s politics then. They are so determined to eliminate any referencing of women from life it’s… it’s beyond shocking. Oh right. Mary Wollstonecraft was allowed to sneak in under ‘liberalism’. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you sooo much. Feminism has been removed entirely as a political movement, Suffragettes are a sub-section: ‘pressure group methods’. Despair is appropriate here. And - not a single woman in the list of composer/contributors to music. Do these men in suits have wives? Daughters? Mothers? I’m thinking they shouldn’t be allowed. Reasons to Be Cheerful The hacktivist group Anonymous has reportedly uncovered plots by Isis for terrorist attacks in Paris, US, Indonesia, Italy and Lebanon. A subgroup of Anonymous called OpParisIntel published a statement claiming that they had found details about an imminent attack by IS, just over a week after Paris. "The goal is to make sure the whole world, or at least the people going to these events, know that there have been threats and that there is possibility of an attack to happen. Another goal is to make sure Daesh knows that the world knows and cancels the attacks, which will disorientate them for a while." The list: • Multiple venues in the French capital, • A WWE Survivor Series event in the Philips Arena in Atlanta, • A Five Finger Death Punch gig in Milan, • University Pastoral Day in Lebanon, • The Al-Jihad, One Day One Juz in Indonesia, and • The global Catholic Church celebrations of Feast of Christ the King. Three days after the Paris attacks Anonymous released a video announcing that the group would “launch the biggest operation ever” against Isis. The hacking collective vowed to “unite humanity” warning the terrorist group to “expect massive cyber-attacks.” See. You do feel cheerful already don’t you? Anonymous are now flooding all pro-Isis hashtags with “Rick Roll” videos. Rick Roll you ask? Rick Astley of course. So whenever any Isis account tries to spread any message, the topic will instead be flooded with endless videos of Rick Astley circa 1987. "Never Gonna Give You Up" then? Never. Anonymous has targeted Isis in the past, dismantling 149 Islamic State websites so far this year. The hacking collective has reportedly taken down over 5,500 Twitter accounts purported belonging to Isis. Clue: collective cheering here. “Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down, you should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.” Break out the bubbly then. Isis response to the Anonymous video? They called the group “idiots” and offering technical guidance to Isis supporters in an effort to protect against any future Anonymous cyber-attacks. Well, we could use the children’s ‘sticks and stones’ chant couldn’t we (OK – if you’ve forgotten: ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me’) as Isis has been unable to ‘win the war’ – ie; eliminate Anonymous. Idiots. So there is a God then…. Cheers. Your Christmas, Your Rules Feeling Christmas advert saturation yet? Hitting the remote every time a cheery Christmas family dinner scene appears on your telly? Has that nauseating John Lewis man on the moon ad made you misanthropic? Well, cheer up. House of Fraser’s Your Christmas, Your Rules advert is fab and fun, clever and creative, innovative and inspiring. You’ll love it. Directed by award-winning Californian filmmaker, Ace Norton, who has helped make music videos for Jennifer Lopez and Scissor Sisters, choreographed by Parris Goebel, who has worked with Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez and Nicki Minaj and most recently on Justin Bieber’s new music video and set to the track ‘You Don’t Own Me’ sung by up-and-coming artist Grace, featuring G-Eazy and finally - made with creative agency 18 Feet & Rising. Hint: the dinner scene. |